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Yakima River -- February 19, 2009

Bill Fox and I arrived in Ellensburg on Wednesday morning. The temperature was 24 but would climb up to 50 during the day. The sky was clear and sunny.

We teamed up with our guide, Ryan, at the Worley Bugger Fly Co. and headed for the river. Ryan had decided to do the KOA to Rinehart drift that day.

The fishing for the previous 4 days had been really good so we had high hopes. Did those hopes ever get dashed in a hurry. Ryan worked hard trying to get us into fish but the fish would have nothing to do with it.

Bill and I both managed to catch one fish each that day. Bill got a 14 inch Rainbow on a Skwalla stonefly pattern and I caught a 12 inch Whitefish on a pink San Juan Worm.

For whatever reason, all the fish had lockjaw. None were feeding to speak of. We had a minor hatch of rather large midges and I only saw two fish the whole day that slurped the surface for those flies. There were no fish flashing down on the bottom, so none were feeding.

I know it wasn't us, as I talked to a number of other fly fishermen that evening and no one did any good that day.

That evening Bill and I met up with Steve, also known as 'Z' on FAOL. We had a good dinner and a chance to shoot the breeze about fly fishing.

The next morning found Bill and me again at the Worley Bugger Fly Co. The sky had a thin layer of clouds up really high, but the morning's temperature was 27. However, it never warmed up like it had the day before, it stayed cooler and we had a little more wind that day.

I would like to say that we went out there and really slammed the trout that second day, but I always give factual fishing reports so I have to admit that it was just about as bad as the first day.

I finally managed to catch one really nicely colored Cutthroat later in the afternoon. That was my one and only confirmed hit on my flies. Again, it was on a pink SJW.

Bill did a little better the second day. He caught one decent Rainbow, then a Whitefish, and get this, a Sculpin. That sucker was about 6 inches long. Later in the day Bill had on a really nice trout, I would say it was a Rainbow based on the colors I saw flashing as he fought it. However, it came off the hook just as Bill was getting it close to the boat, so we don't know for sure how big it was. It did have weight to it and looked a lot bigger than the other trout we had landed. Bill caught one of his fish on the Skwalla Stonefly nymph if I am not mistaken then the other two that were boated were on a sparkle pupa type nymph, small in size.

We saw no hatches the second day, and I saw no fish feeding on the surface. Again, there was no flashing going on. The fish just were not feeding.

Larry ---sagefisher---

Last edited by sagefisher; 02-20-2009 at 06:46 PM.
Reason: Get rid of the ?'s